We had a great weekend in Avignon. We bopped down on an early TGV Saturday, enjoyed two days of nice sunshine, and crawled back to Paris on Sunday night. It was a great break away from the winter grey.
We took a nice walk along the Rhone river, toured the Papal palace, and took a side trip to Orange to see the Roman Theater. The pope bailed on Rome in the 1300's and took up residence in Avignon for a bit. A nice papal fortress was built, which was totally ransacked in the French Revolution. So there isn't much detail left to see inside. The theater in Orange was built in the first century A.D., and is the only roman theater in Europe that still has its back wall standing.
I think the best part was our dinner Saturday night at La Mirande. It's a Michelin 1 star in a boutique hotel next to the Papal palace.
We signed up for "Table d'hote" (hosted table). The hotel has a restored 19th century kitchen in the basement with a monstrous wood fired stove. You get to eat in the kitchen, and watch the chef cook each course. There were 11 of us including the hotel owner. It was a fun group, which was good, because you are thrust into sharing a dinner table with everyone. The picture here is Jean-Claude starting on dinner while we were all enjoying our before dinner drink.
We enjoyed three different wines, two light whites, and a suprisingly nice red with the duck course. After dinner Sarah and I both indulged in very expensive after dinner drinks (mine was a 1979 armagnac).
Our 5 course dinner was amazing:
- Pan fried Fois gras set in cream of artichoke soup
- Monstrous shrimp (largest I've ever seen in my life) and sea scallops in a mushroom and leek creme sauce
- Roast duck (roasted 5 hours) in a fabulous red wine and duck liver sauce with small blob of mashed potatoes and a whole roasted shallot
- Mont d'Or Vacherin baked cheese
- Pan fried pineapple slice with apple and grapefruit sauces with orange sorbet.
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